Lost in the Vortex
by Weimlady
Summary: This happens some time after the S4 episode, Death of the Doctor.  And...before Robot.  Yeah, well, you'll see.


Sarah Jane flopped down on the old brown couch in her attic, phone to her ear.

"No, Clyde," she said firmly into the mobile. "You and Rani may not..."

A familiar vworp-vworp-vworp sound stopped her in mid-sentence.

"Temporal fluctuations detected," Mr. Smith intoned needlessly, as Sarah twisted around to face the spot in her attic where the Doctor had last parked his time machine.

"Ohmigawd, is that Him?" Clyde shouted into the phone as he, too, heard the TARDIS materializing. "Sarah Jane, is he back? Whaffor? Whassup?"

Sarah didn't answer. Her eyes were glued to the image of a police box that was phasing into existence in front of her. There was something...not right about it. She stared. And yet...so very right. A darker blue. Rougher. As if...

"Oh my God." It came out more breath than sound. She dropped the phone and stood up as the TARDIS door opened.

"Sarah Jane! Sarah Jane? What is it?" Clyde's voice squawked away tinnily from between the couch cushions. Sarah didn't even hear it. All of her senses were fully focussed on the tall, long-legged, white-haired man who appeared in the TARDIS doorway.

He leaned heavily on the TARDIS doorframe, his deeply lined face haggard, his usually sparkling blue eyes washed out and weary. His velvet smoking jacket and ruffled collar and cuffs even seemed to droop. "Sarah Jane," he breathed as his eyes lighted on her. A shadow of his usual beaming smile flickered across his face. "I found you."

As if this simple statement had taken the last of his strength, his knees buckled and he tumbled forward. Sarah raced up the steps just in time to catch him. She propped him up, wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled his arm around her shoulders. "Come on," she said, grunting with the effort of trying to support him. "Just over here."

Together, they stumbled the few steps to the couch, and the Doctor-the old Doctor, her first Doctor-collapsed onto it. His head lolled, eyes closed, and his mouth hung open as he struggled to catch a breath.

Sarah squeezed his hand, and stroked his forehead, pushing the straggling white strands of hair up off it. "What are you doing here?" she asked tenderly, urgently. "What's happened?"

"Radiation," he said, opening his eyes a crack. "Metebelis 3."

She nodded, wanting to spare him the effort of speaking. "I know."

He nodded weakly. "Lost...in the vortex."

"That's what you said...before," she said.

He rallied a bit and looked into her eyes, puzzled. "Before?" he asked in a rasp.

"Yes..well..." She stopped, flummoxed by the memories that were flooding back at the sight of the Doctor she'd first met, looking as gray and deathly as he had thirty-five years before when he arrived back at UNIT HQ after everyone had given him up for dead, three weeks after he'd gone off to Metebelis 3 to return the blue crystal to the Queen of the Eight Legs. But here he was in her attic. On her couch. "Before." She started over. "The last time this happened."

With effort, he glanced around the attic. No light of recognition came into his eyes. "Has this happened before?" he asked weakly.

Sarah followed his gaze around the room for a moment, then shook her head. "No. Not like this. You came back to UNIT HQ. You were gone so long." She remembered haunting the place, moping around until Sgt. Benton took pity on her and brought her tea and biscuits that she could barely choke down, taking the old plaid cape down from the coat rack and hugging it, burying her nose in it, trying so hard to hang on to hope. "How did you get here?"

"Lost..in the vortex," he said again. "Told the TARDIS to...find you." He held out an unsteady hand and touched her cheek. "She did."

Sarah felt tears spring to her eyes. She took his hand and pressed it to her cheek, leaning into it. "She did. But..at the wrong time. Look at me."

He did. A touch of color came back into his face, a sliver of a smile. "Beautiful," he said softly.

"Old," she corrected him, as gently as she could.

"Never," the Doctor chided her. "Lovely..." His eyes closed and his head started to fall back.

"Doctor!" She put a hand behind his head and held it up. Her mind raced. Could she let him stay? Would he regenerate here, even without the "little push" from Cho Je that had triggered his transformation before? "Doctor," she said, more softly. "I don't know how much I can tell you. How much I should tell you. But..you came back. To 1975. And you...you regenerated."

"Did I?" he said, blinking muzzily. "I wondered if I might. Wasn't sure..."

"You did," she assured him. "But...if you stay here...and you regenerate..." She took a deep breath before asking the question that was suddenly thudding through her heart. "Would you become the same man you did? Back then?"

She regretted the question as soon as she asked it. He looked so exhausted, in so much pain, and yet he was obviously trying to think through her question, to come up with an answer for her.

He shook his head very slightly. "Don't know. Never been..."

She placed a gentle finger on his lips to shush him and nodded. "It's okay. I'm sorry. Just rest."

They sat in silence for a moment, Sarah drinking in the sight of him, he lying back, eyes closed, breath coming shallowly. He was obviously failing, Sarah thought as she placed a hand on his chest, feeling the ragged beating of his hearts. Could she take a chance that he would survive a regeneration here and now? What if that changed history, hers and his, and none of the adventures they'd had could happen? But what wonderful new adventures they could have, a voice in her head piped up. She could have him back-her Doctor-teeth, curls and all-the one she hadn't shared with anyone, the one that was hers alone. And Gallifrey was gone. The Time Lords could never call him away this time.

"Oh," she moaned, softly, regretfully. "Doctor. We have to get you back."

He roused himself with effort. "Back?" was all he could manage to ask.

She nodded. "To 1975. To UNIT HQ. So you can regenerate. And we...well, we can..."

"What, Sarah Jane?" His voice was barely audible. He reached up with a shaking hand and ran his long fingers through her hair.

She smiled through tears. "You'll see. Oh. You'll see." She waited one more second to give that voice in her head its final chance to talk her out of doing what she knew she had to do. "Come on," she said gently, when it remained silent. "Let's get you back into the TARDIS."

Somehow, she managed to wedge herself under his arm and get him upright. Together, they wobbled and weaved up the steps to the TARDIS and into the gleaming white console room. New tears flowed as she looked around the familiar space, the space that was her happiest home for so long. She made sure the Doctor was propped against the console and steady, for the moment, before checking out the controls. It all came back to her, so quickly. It was so right. She flipped switches and set dials and pulled levers with confidence, pointing the TARDIS toward her other self, that younger self that was waiting so hopefully back in 1975..

The Doctor peered at her through bleary eyes. "How did you..."

She shushed him. "You taught me."

His brows furrowed. "When?"

She grinned a dazzling grin at him. "Soon." The central column started rising and falling slowly, and the vwoorp-vwoorp of imminent dematerialization sounded. She hugged him as tightly as she dared. "I have to go," she whispered. "But I'll be waiting for you."

He sagged against the console, at the end of his energy, and she tore herself away, knowing he would be alright, knowing exactly what was going to happen next in his timeline, how overjoyed and heartbroken and amazed she was about to be, in turns, when he reappeared, died, and came back to life as a new man. A new Time Lord. She ran out the door, slammed it behind her, and leaned back against it as her knees suddenly went weak.

The TARDIS dematerialized. She fell back a step as she lost its support, caught herself, pulled herself up to her full height, raised her eyebrows and breathed out a long breath.

"Sarah Jane! Sarah Jane!" Clyde burst into the attic, shouting her name. He skidded to a halt in front of her, grabbing her upper arms. "Where is he? Was it him? What happened?" Her silence finally broke through his excitement, and he looked into her eyes, saw her tear-stained cheeks, the forced rigidity of her spine. "Are you alright?" he asked more gently.

She thought about that for a second before nodding, curtly, her lips pressed tightly together.

"I'm fine," she said, wondering how honest she was being. "Oh Clyde. I wish you had arrived a few minutes sooner."

"Came as fast as I could," he said, a bit defensively. "When you just disappeared off the phone..."

"Sorry," she said with a smile.

"Was it him, then?"

She nodded. "Oh, I wish you could have met him."

Clyde's eyebrows furrowed. "The Doctor?" Sarah nodded, smiling that sad/happy smile that only thoughts of the Doctor brought to her lips. "I've met him. Twice," he reminded her.

She shook her head slowly. "Not this one," she said. "Not this one."

THE END...and THE BEGINNING


End file.
